Iraq targets pose military, political problems

Published: Friday, November 13, 1998

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pentagon planners have no shortage of targets in Iraq, but most present difficult military and political problems.

A factory in a Baghdad suburb might produce either deadly anthrax or beer - or both. The intelligence service's headquarters, which might be the target of an early cruise missile strike, sits in a busy urban neighborhood, thereby raising the risk of civilian casualties. No one knows which of 100 or more bunkers might conceal President Saddam Hussein or his top commanders.

Senior Pentagon officials say plans for possible air strikes on Iraq seek to avoid accidental damage and harm to everyday Iraqis. But they admit that goal often clashes with the military aim of weakening Iraq's military and with the political aim of hitting Iraq hard enough to force compliance with U.N. weapons inspections.

A senior military official familiar with the strike planning said installations likely to harm the general population unduly are not being targeted. The official specified power grids, bridges and other public utilities as likely to be off limits.

Instead, planners are focusing primarily on targets related to Iraq's suspected programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Many sites are simply unknown because of elaborate Iraqi efforts at concealment.

The Americans give two examples they say indicate the lengths Iraq has gone to hide its weapons programs. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, international inspectors found Scud missile production tools at the villa of Iraqi Maj. Izzadin al-Majid in the West Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib. And U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the Taji Electrical Light Bulb Factory northwest of Baghdad may have been a chemical weapons storage site.

"Because of eight years of determined efforts by Saddam, we certainly wouldn't pretend to know where vast quantities of chemical or biological product is stored or manufactured," said another senior defense official.

These and other administration officials spoke on condition of not being identified by name.

Even known potential targets pose problems. U.N. inspectors identified and visited 79 possible biological weapons manufacturing sites. Only five were making weapons before the Gulf War. Another five make vaccines or pharmaceuticals, raising parallels to the hotly debated August cruise missile strike on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan linked by U.S. intelligence to VX gas production.

The rest of the possible biological weapons sites are research centers or university-based laboratories and breweries, distilleries and dairies with equipment that could be used for making weapons, according to the United Nations.

Difficulties such as these are steering strike planners to targets related to methods of deploying and launching weapons, such as the Al-Farouk factory, linked to production of mobile missile launchers. About a dozen Iraqi airfields are likely to be targeted, not only to eliminate a threat to U.S. and British aircraft but also to destroy planes that might be used to drop or spray chemical or biological weapons.

A top-priority target will be Iraq's extensive air defense system, with 340 surface-to-air missile launchers arrayed, many of them around Baghdad.

Iraqi intelligence facilities also are in the cross hairs, according to senior military officials, including the Al Hadi Project, Iraq's signals and electronic intelligence center.

odrmpraConventional weapons manufacturing sites also interest Pentagon planners because the trade embargo over Iraq means that destroyed equipment may be irreplaceable.